Partners predict an exodus from publicly-funded work as the MoJ plans to cut £350m from the legal aid budget but are split over whether cuts are justified. Friederike Heine reports

The overwhelming majority of partners at commercial law firms believe Ministry of Justice (MoJ) plans to cut £350m from its annual legal aid budget will lead to a 'brain drain' of talented lawyers from publicly-funded work.

Just under half of partners responding to Legal Week's Big Question survey said the scale of cuts will lead to a considerable brain drain from a sector already contending with low billing rates, with 8% claiming they will have an enormous impact and a further 40% saying they will make a small contribution to lawyers moving away from publicly-funded work.

The predicted exodus will be compounded by the existing low rates for publicly-funded legal work, with only 13% of City partners claiming current rates to be fair, with the remainder believing them to be too low – including 13% who branded them 'ridiculous'.

Clyde & Co litigation partner Ben Knowles commented: "The cuts are bad news for lawyers who work in areas that are publicly-funded, not only because the rates are low, but also because of the increasing unpredictability of government-funded work. This is likely to have the effect that ever more small law firms will go out of business."

However, the survey, which comes a week after the MoJ said it planned to cut £350m from its £2.1bn annual legal aid budget, found City partners were divided over the policy, with 37% deeming the cuts to be justified while 26% branded them as excessive. A further 40% had mixed feelings on the subject.

Freshfields Bruckhaus Deringer litigation partner Paul Lomas commented: "There is no doubt that the legal aid budget has been savaged and will only be used for a very limited number of basic needs."

Clifford Chance head of public policy and government affairs Oliver Bretz added: "It is good that criminal legal aid is safe-guarded. There are a lot of different categories within civil law and it will be important to make sure that justice is not impacted by the cuts."

Despite predicting that talented lawyers will move away from publicly-funded work, many partners are reluctant to see commercial law firms picking up the slack by significantly increasing their own pro bono efforts. While 35% of partners either agreed 'very much' or 'to a fair extent' that law firms should increase pro bono to help compensate, nearly 40% said firms should only step up efforts 'a bit', while just over 25% were strongly against such a move.

Lomas said: "The wider community may think that if the Government steps back, the gap will be filled by a supply of lawyers from the top commercial firms which mysteriously appear from the undergrowth ready for the task. But the London firms will simply not be able to plug the gap that will be created by the cuts to legal aid – they just do not have the resources, and are not set up to do that."

Nabarro corporate head Iain Newman added: "Further cuts to the legal aid budget will increase the pressure on the provision of legal services to vulnerable people. This gap is unlikely to be – and should not be – filled by the expansion of pro bono services."

The research also found that one in four partners believe the UK could perform better in terms of access to justice for the less well-off, while one-third of respondents felt large commercial law firms should be taking their own pro bono efforts more seriously.

Partners on legal aid cuts

- 13% of partners believe the current rates for publicly-funded legal work are 'ridiculous'
- 26% are strongly against commercial law firms increasing their pro bono efforts to compensate for the cuts to legal aid
- 41% think large commercial law firms currently take pro bono seriously
- 57% think the scale of the cuts will lead to a brain drain of talented lawyers from publicly-funded work

For more, see MoJ details legal aid cuts and plans for Jackson reforms.